


I Could Almost Love You

by Lacquestar



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, Sexy Times, the original odd couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 00:12:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6215836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacquestar/pseuds/Lacquestar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was an Ancient, he was Calamity's son. Hojo might have concocted him with more than a few drops of Ancient blood, and she did wonder sometimes if he could hear some echo of Planet. But he was Calamity's child to the bone. Whether he had no Ancient blood or he had it in spades, it didn't matter. He'd committed too many sins to ever find a place in the Promised Land.</p>
<p>“I don't desire anything from you. Except for you to stop breaking my things and dripping all over my campsite.” He was disrupting her neatness, blurring her boundaries, and making her insecure.</p>
<p>“I could break you,” His tone sharpens as that too-bright Mako gleam covered his eyes once more. “Are you afraid, little Cetra? Is your life flashing before your eyes?”</p>
<p>(Aerith encounters Sephiroth on the way to the Ancient City.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Could Almost Love You

**Once Upon a Time Many Years Ago**

Mama stood barefoot in the kitchen, her fae beauty at odds with the hum-drum, everyday appearance of the room as she glared down at her only begotten child.

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Mama's hands slapped against the apron on her hips. She meant business. “Stop teasing Sephiroth, Aerith. Now. Life in that lab is cruel, child. He needs these weekends. You will make him feel welcome. You _will_ apologize to him or your father will know the reason why. Is that clear?”

Mama towered over her, magic sparking in her eyes. The kitchen appliances shake as they usually do as if they can sense the electricity of Mama's magic. Daddy is always telling Mama not to use magic because he always has to reset the generator when she does.

“Yes Ma'm. Sorry.” The little girl looks down at her dirty feet, stubbing one toe against the ground.

“To him, child, Not me. Here.” Mama flicks her hand, and two cookies levitate from the baking sheet to fly at Aerith's head. She catches them in the air. “Men and food get along together like biscuits and gravy. Go. You two must learn to get along. It's important. You'll understand one day when you're older.”

Aerith made a face. She wished she was older so Mama could tell her why she had to be nice to freaky Sephiroth who skulked around their house always playing with his sword and scaring away all her playmates. He never said anything nice to her. He didn't want to play with her either. Not playing house, not playing board games, not even playing Pirates and Princesses. In a pique, she asked him once if he wanted to play dolls, and he cut her doll up with his gigantic sword. She cried, he got this horrible look on his face and she never asked him to play with her every again.

But now she had to apologize to him? Just because she said his eyes freaked her out? Life was so unfair. He never apologized for ripping her doll into shreds.

She stomped outside, looking for him but he wasn't in the front yard or the back yard or even the side yard. No, he was all the way in the chocobo field across the street where they weren't supposed to go. Now she was probably going to get in trouble for that too as she crawled under the fence.

The only thing she liked about him was his hair because that was silver and looked soft. She didn't know because she'd never dared ask if she could brush it. He was too tall, all arms, legs, and that stupid sword he was swinging around. Nobody believed he was 12. His eyes narrowed when he saw her, but he put away the sword all the same.

“Go away.” He ordered, used to everyone listening to every word he said.

She held out the cookie.

“What is that?”

“A cookie. Duh.” How could he not know what a cookie was? Why was he looking at it like it was a poisonous apple from a fairy tale? An uncomfortable feeling fluttered through her small heart. Had he really never had a cookie before?

“Here.” She stepped closer until she had to stretch up to give it to him. “For you. I'm sorry.”

He took it gingerly, examining it in his hands before taking a fastidious bite.

“Mmm.” He muttered, throwing himself down on the ground beside her. It was nice when he sat down because then he wasn't towering over her. “It is good.”

“Mama makes them.” She said around a mouthful of cookie. He looked sideways at her, then gave her a halfway smile that made him not look so tough. In fact, it almost made him look friendly.

“Thank you.” He said politely.

“Can I brush your hair?” She blurted out, because he'd never been so nice to her.

“What?” He blinked.

“Brush it. Your hair. I used to brush my doll's hair. I can't anymore. You ripped her up. I can't play with her at all. Mama threw her away.”

“So? Who needs toys? I never had toys.” He looked away from her. She flinched and stood up. He wasn't nice at all.

She was about to crawl under the fence again when he caught up to her.

“I'll let you if you get me another cookie.” He told her scowling even as he picked her up easily and lifted her over the fence. She beamed up at him as he jumped down beside her.

Later, when he sat on the bottom step and she sat on the top, brushing his hair that was just as soft as she always thought, he was quiet for a long time. Mama came to stand in the doorway, smiled at them, and even gave him another cookie. He didn't even complain when she started weaving a small braid into his hair.

“I don't like my eyes.” He said out of nowhere. “I know people don't like them either.”

“I didn't mean it,” she said softly.

“I would change them if I could.”

“I said I didn't mean it. I like them. A lot.”

He jerked in front of her, glancing at her over his shoulder and the sunlight caught his cat eyes so they almost glowed.

“They're really pretty,” she whispered, staring at him in awe.

His eyes went wide. She jumped up, grabbed her brush and ran inside. The startled look he gave her was just too much for her tiny childhood heart. She hoped Mama wouldn't yell at her about that too. Mama knew everything she did.

 

* * *

 

 

**15 Years Later**

“Hot chocolate with marshmellows.” She huffed inside the hood of her parka, tramping through yet another snowdrift. They kept getting bigger the further north she went. Sometimes, she stumbled while slogging through one and a fair bit of snow got inside her boots that promptly melted into an icy sludge that numbed each and every one of her toes. Worse was the winds that topped the mountains and scrambled down at a knife's edge, strong enough to take her breath away. Even worse were the times it snowed so hard and became so cold her eyelashes would freeze together.

Fun times on the way to the Ancient City all alone.

“Hot chocolate with peppermint,” she half whispered, half sang to herself. Traveling alone in the wild was lonely. You could fall off a cliff and they wouldn't discover your body for hundreds of years, that's how far she was in the wilderness.

But she wasn't _utterly_ alone out here. Somewhere behind her and to the left, she sensed all the seething power, vengeful rage, and self-immolating sickness that was him. He would burn himself, burn her, and burn the entire world. Her predestined adversary, a monster made man, they said.

He knew her. When they finally came face to face in the Ancient Temple, he kept focusing on Cloud, but those inhuman cat eyes kept flickering sideways towards her. _You know me as I know you, Cetra. We've always known, haven't we? Even long before I heard Zack speak your name._ He'd spoken those words directly into her mind. Calling out a memory that only halfway flared to life before her mind recoiled in a thousand points of light behind her eyes. She'd stumbled backwards into Cloud who protectively moved in front of her. His face didn't change, but she felt his silent laughter all the same.

Oh, her head hurt so bad sometimes. There were memories, old and worn from the time before she came to Midgar that she could sense but never quite recall. Planet murmured that she didn't want to know them. Her own mother had hidden them long ago.

“Hot chocolate with cream liquor.” She breathed between chattering teeth. _Planet I wish I was back in Costa del Sol._ It was a warm memory of a bright, sunny place. Even camping there wasn't so bad, not with all her friends. There was plenty of food; the guys would always bicker about over who got what cut of meat on the spit over the campfire. Except for Cloud because all that Mako in his blood meant he rarely got hungry and Vincent, who hungered for something else entirely.

There was Tifa who hungered for Cloud and Yuffie who hungered for attention. When they left Costa Del Sol that first night, Yuffie started pulling newly acquired trinkets out of her bags: more materia pieces (of course) along with innocent things like seashells and postcards that no one believed she bought. Especially Vincent, who came right out and said that Yuffie was disgracing her family name by stealing things from the gift shop . _'Oh yeah, Vinnie, oh yeah,'_ Yuffie pulled a large, heavy bottle out of her bag and smacked it on the ground in front of them. _'Look at those ninja skills,'_ she'd crowed. Someone, probably Cid, remarked that it was a 500 gil bottle of whiskey, and Yuffie said she was about to make it a 450 gil bottle as she tried her best to unscrew the top before Vincent snatched it out of her hands, telling her she wasn't old enough to drink.

Then there was her. Aerith. Last of the Cetra who hungered for life. Her final night with her friends, she watched Cloud silently sharpen the Buster sword by the campfire long after everyone else fell asleep. Cloud's sword now, but once, years ago, it was Zack's sword. It came into her life, left, and then came back again. Aerith knew by now that many things leave, but few ever return.

“What will you do with it Cloud?” She asked.

His Mako eyes flicked up at her from his bowed head, their intense state pinning her on his single, terse 'what?'

“The sword. Years from now, when you get old and your strength fades, what will you do with it?”

“Sell it,” he answered immediately.

“Oh,” she gasped, horrified until she saw the playful gleam in his eyes. Only in their rare, private moments together would he soften enough to joke with her.

“I'll keep it. Give it to my son, he'll give it to his son, isn't that how it goes? Until one of them sells it one day?”

“You could give it to your daughter too,” she pointed out.

“Or my daughter too,” Cloud conceded. “My imaginary future family just keeps getting bigger.”

She laughed. It was a pleasant moment, while it lasted.

“If there is a future,” Cloud's tone a knife through the peacefulness.

“Cloud,” she held out her hand, touching the back of his and he looked down at where she touched him. “There will be a future. A beautiful one. You will see.”

He lifted his head to her, his gaze heavy and binding. She couldn't look away. A silent promise passed between him and her. Their souls were wise beyond their years and sensed the finality of the moment. She thought he might kiss her, he looked like he would, but then Barrett gave a snore to wake the dead and the both of them pulled back.

That was the last time she saw him.

“Hot chocolate with marshmellows, peppermint, liquor. Oh.” She stamped a wet boot into the snow. “Who am I kidding? I couldn't have had a life with him. Our pasts were too heavy to ignore.”

The tears on her face mingled with the fallen snow and froze. Falling faster and faster now until it erased all the world into the emptiness of creation. Except it was a cold, frostbitten creation that doomed her from the start and so she had to find somewhere to hide.

_A cave,_ she thought, focusing on her rapidly fading surroundings. _What luck. If there's nothing living inside of it, that is._

She clambered inside and set about making a proper little campsite. A campfire powered by her flaming fire materia. Her teapot, a touch of home that she'd brought all the many miles from Midgar bubbling away happily over the flames. Waterlogged boots and socks side-by-side in a straight line beside her bedroll. Homey, neat, and orderly, just how she liked it.

Planet wove its plaintive cry around her as she drank her tea, throwing her into a dismal mood. Even the fire, once so happy and bright, was now just a symbol of things come and gone. Beautiful, hungry flames born in one minute to die in the next as their death made way for new flames to rise from the ashes.

_Aren't we just the same, though our lifetimes are longer,_ she mused. Nothing more than burning, hungry souls that rise and fall? Mother to son, father to daughter, generations stretching back past memory and time.

She sips her tea.

_I don't think I shall ever have a child or a family. I think the path I follow into the City of Ancients won't lead me back out. Who will mourn me, then when I go? What do I leave behind? I shall come and go unnoticed and unloved._

**_You're children will be all the world,_** Planet murmured.

Aerith shook her head, setting down her teacup.

_I don't need all the world to love me. One man, that would have been nice. To live the rest of my life with him, fall asleep while he holds me in his arms, getting to know him as men and women do. I never even got to know that._ She blushed. Sex and all its virtues or its vices would forever remain a mystery to her, as would passionate, pure love. _I could have loved Zack, it could have been him, but he died. Maybe that's why I could have loved Cloud, because I saw Zack in him. Maybe, maybe. And in Zack I saw someone else, someone I should know, someone's echo-_ Her head hurt.

**_Echo of an echo._** Planet hummed sadly. **_You could remember if you tried. You don't want to remember, last of Ancients._**

Last of the Ancients. To be the last is to be the loneliest creature of all. She glanced at the mouth of the cave, almost completely enclosed it a snowdrift that would be most unpleasant trying to crawl through tomorrow. In the remaining clear space between snow and rock, the sky peeked through, speckled with stars.

“Star light, Star bright, I have a wish to make tonight,” she murmured. Her voice as ethereal as the wind and as hidden as childhood. “I wish I knew, what I was supposed to be. I wish I wasn't so alone.”

She laid down and feel asleep listening to the call of the wind and the murmurs of Planet in her soul. In her dreams, the image that kept returning with increasing frequency haunted her. A pair of green cat eyes, looking sideways at her before glowing in recognition.

_You know me as I know you, Cetra. We've always known, haven't we? Even long before I heard Zack speak your name._

 

* * *

 

 

**The rattle of the teapot woke her.**

She felt his power, for he was his own angry fire-breathing dragon hissing at the world and smothering all else. Sephiroth, the monster made by man, the great General who went mad, the would-be destroyer of the world, Calamity's son born into chains. Sephiroth sat across from her, holding her teapot.

Every single confusing, fluttering emotion she felt upon seeing him in the Temple returned tenfold. All her life she heard people speak of him. Zack had lived in awe of him, the greatest warrior who ever lived. Elmyra would sadly whisper that he was the bright light of the Wutai war. Could had snarled that Sephiroth took away the innocent lives of hundreds of plain folk who never wanted anything more than a quiet life in their little corner of the world. Even the Zolom of the swamps spoke of Sephiroth, though it could no longer talk. It was dead, speared and skewered onto a tree by Sephiroth's brutal strength.

_Why was his hair as silver-white as the snow? Oh, it should be red as rubies and dark as a scab,_ she thought because monsters didn't always look like monsters. Sometimes they looked like angels too beautiful for words on TV screens. They could be the fantasy of every red-blooded Midgarian girl who should know better.

_And that thought is going away. Right now,_ she winced.

He sat cross-legged in front of the fire, cat eyes intensely studying the battered teapot before pouring himself a cup of tea. Masamune lay stretched on the ground in front of him, its hilt within easy reach.

_Well, at least with the fire in front of him like that, he looks as he should. A demonic child of the Calamity._ She thinks, watching.

“You make very good tea, Cetra.” Sensing her stare without having to look. Everything about him, from the polite edge to his voice to the delicate way he held a teacup was wrong. Like they were old friends discussing happier times over a pleasant brunch instead of a madman trying to destroy the world and a girl fighting to save it.

His face was also wrong, always as flat and emotionless as water in a stagnant pool. Not when he crowed his triumph at Cloud in the Ancient Temple, not when he made a speech to hundreds on the television, and probably not even when he stabbed Tseng.

“What are you doing?” She finally demanded with all the authority one could muster when one finds their mortal enemy watching them sleep. “You can't just sneak into someone's campsite when they're sleeping and drink their tea,”

In the grand scope of things, drinking tea uninvited was likely the smallest crime he'd ever committed, but it was the one that directly effected her now. She glanced nervously at his blade.

“You like my sword?” Dark amusement laced his tone. “There is none other like it in all the world.”

“I think it's a horrible thing.”

He took a sip of tea as his eyes blazed with Mako energy, infiltrating and devouring her.

“You enjoy following me, Cetra?” The tone changed to a tiger's predatory growl laced with sensual promise.

"You are the one following me. Only I know the way.” At least she sounded calmer than she felt. If she showed her fear, it would only feed his revolting sense of superiority.

“My desire is your desire.” He purred, the Mako light flashing bright. When its embers faded from his eyes, he blinked in confusion down at the teacup until it cracked in his hands. Lips tight, he tossed it over his shoulder. “You follow me because I desire to see our home, and so you desire to see it too.”

_Our home._

She was an Ancient, he was Calamity's son. Hojo might have concocted him with more than a few drops of Ancient blood, and she did wonder sometimes if he could hear some echo of Planet. But he was Calamity's child to the bone. Whether he had no Ancient blood or he had it in spades, it didn't matter. He'd committed too many sins to ever find a place in the Promised Land.

“I don't desire anything from you. Except for you to stop breaking my things and dripping all over my campsite.” He was disrupting her neatness, blurring her boundaries, and making her insecure.

“I could break you,” His tone sharpens as that too-bright Mako gleam covered his eyes once more. “Are you afraid, little Cetra? Is your life flashing before your eyes?”

“You need me alive to reach the Ancient City. So no, I am not afraid of you. I could wander around here for 10 years. You'd follow. Waiting and hoping. Never killing me.” She gave him a pleasant smile.

“Ah.” He gave her a cold smile in return. Their eyes clashed, two souls locked in silent struggle. Finally, he motioned at her with a gloved hand.

“Come here, Aerith. I am cold."

Not Cetra, not girl, but Aerith.

She wished he'd said anything but her name. Hearing him speak it stirred something underneath her chest, just below her heart. Zack's words used to have that effect on her but Zack wasn't a psychotic mass murderer.

_He needs to go far away. Right now._

“Sephiroth, you must leave," she began, trying not to think about how ridiculous it was that a former slum-girl could think to command Shin-Ra's former Great General. "I don't know why you came except to steal my tea and I suppose to get out of the snowstorm, but you cannot-"

He stalked to her, dropping heavily onto his knees before awkwardly drawing her against him. This close she could smell his scent of leather, musk, and smothering magic power. His hands, unused to holding anyone, didn't quite know where to go as they rested on her shoulders one moment, then on her arms, then one time against the beating pulse of her neck before finally tying around her waist.

"I came because you wanted me to. Your desire my desire. I heard you." His desire and passion sounded as flat and empty as his tone. Even the fire of Mako burned itself out in his eyes.

_I do wish his eyes would stop flickering like that_ , she thought helplessly as she pushed against him knowing it did no good. He didn't move.

"I want no such thing." _I did not say anything like that! I've never even talked to him before._

Planet, that great betrayer, laughed. **_Yes you have,_** Planet hummed. **_You could remember if you tried. He remembers though he wishes he could forget._** She never felt so utterly confused in her life.

"Do not lie to yourself, and do not lie to me.” Calamity's deadly son tells her softly. “Now, here, we are alone. We can do as we wish.” His gloved hand brushes the side of her face with unexpected gentleness. She flinches. He frowns, lips brushing her ear as he spoke. "My mother has gone silent again. When she sees you, she slinks away. Why is that, Aerith? I don't understand this power you hold.”

How could she possibly answer? She didn't know the Calamity, the creature that bore him. If it came and went, how could she tell? Fire burned his eyes again while his fingers tightened on her face, and rough, cruel lips covered hers.

_Oh, Planet._

Sharp teeth pull at her lower lip until she yelps in pain, giving him the chance to twist his tongue into her mouth. He devours her, swallowing her cries and demanding more. How her treacherous body yearns for this, the blood trickling down from her lip echoing the desire trickling down to her womb. He knows, for even as he licks at her bloodied lip she feels him smile against her. As if they both knew they would respond this way, should the day they meet ever come to pass.

“Sephiroth.” A plea to stop or go on, she doesn't know.

He pulled back, peering intently at her. Inhuman cat-eyes, unnatural silver hair, and that haunting empty face should frighten her. Instead, the combination reminded her of how exotic, how different, and how delicately beautiful he was. One shouldn't ever think of 'delicate' and 'Sephiroth' together, but it is what it is.

“What is it you see in me?” She does not understand. She wasn't beautiful, not like him anyway. Rather average: average height, average build, average brown hair. Her eyes were her best feature because that was what everyone complimented her on, but what was her natural deep green hue compared to his brilliant Mako enhanced ones?

“I see the sun and the moon together. Ruin. Here.” A gloved finger traced underneath her eyes.

“Whose ruin?” A breathless question.

“Yours. Mine. Here," He holds her gaze as he shrugged out of his black coat. "I want you to touch me.”

_No_ , her mind blares in alarm. _You are better than this. You have morals, he has none. You know where this will end. You know it is wrong. He's manipulating you, it's what he does._

_Yes,_ bleats her treacherous heart. _Just this one time, yes. Don't you see? Don't you remember seeing him in your dreams long ago? Don't you understand the others were but shadows of him and that's why they called out to you? He is the reality you looked for, you know it's true._

Logic against passion. Practical mind over impulsive heart. She chose heart, and hoped that whatever came after, she'd live to see the dawn. Softly, gently, she raised her hand and laid it over the place where his heart should be. _Did monsters have hearts?_ He shivered at her touch as if it did something to him. _Did monsters feel?_ She turned her head and pressed her ear against his chest.

There it was. A pulsating beat, fast and brutally hard. A living, breathing man after all.

“What is it you do?” His hands gripping the side of her head.

“What you asked,” she whispered. “Let me.”

His heavy breathing echoed around the cave. The heavy hands eventually let go of her head and fall onto the cavern floor. She understands the silent gesture and the temporary surrender to her from this man, the one who the entire world feared.

His action stamped her soul, and with reckless courage she skimmed her fingers over his chest. His skin seemed soft yet she knew it was nigh unbreakable due to Jenova's genes. His muscles were hard and sleek from endless hours, days, and years of training. But there were sensitive parts too, for he twitched a little when her fingers brushed his side as if ticklish. He did the same thing when her fingers curiously traced a tiny, dusky male nipple.

He was hairless too, except for further down below the chest and ridged abdomen. There was a thin streak of white hair starting at his navel that thickened as it disappeared into his pants. _Did she dare?_ When her fingers brushed the little hairs, he inhaled sharply.

_Oh yes, I must dare._ Her eyes flicked up to look at him staring down at her.

“Stop now, little Cetra,” His voice wasn't quite as commanding as earlier. She was still in control.

_No,_ she decided. _I don't have to listen to you. Not now._ Her fingers fumbled with the button on his pants. His hands flex into the ground. He could have stopped her. They both knew it even as her hand brushed against the hard length of his erection. Instinct took over and it was all too natural to wrap her hand around him, feeling him pulse in her grip.

His groan echoed around the cave, his hands digging into the dirt. She'd never felt anything like this heady power before. Looking up at him, she saw his eyes half-lidded, his lips pulled back, revealing gritted teeth. _I did this,_ she realized. _Just by touching him._

“Do you like this?" He asked roughly. “Do you know what you do to me?”

She nodded, because she did like having him at her mercy far too much.

His control snapped , deciding he was done with submitting to her. His hands grabbed her wrists and then twisting her arms behind her back. He was strong enough to hold both in one hand while the other came to the front of her dress.

A second too late she realized what he intended.

“No, wait, I don't have anything else to-”

He ripped it all to easily, the fabric making the saddest sound in all the world as it tore from top to bottom. Her bra got the same treatment as did her underwear. His gloved hand peeled her shredded clothes away from her body so she became completely bare to his gaze.

One gloved hand and then the other peeled the dress back over her shoulders. His cat eyes lazily studied her up and down, but again, whatever he thought didn't show on his face. He remained as emotionless as ever.

Ripped dress. Empty expression. Brutal reality set in. This wasn't some schoolgirl's fantasy of love and kindness. This was real, and it was frightening. He was Sephiroth, her enemy, and by all the gods, this was utterly wrong. She shouldn't have touched him at all, and... and damn it all, he ripped the only clothes she had. He wouldn't stop there, he would hurt her. He'd been a fantasy once, and that was where he should have stayed. He was the most dangerous man she knew.

"I..I don't want to do this." she whispered. His eyes bored into her skull.

"Strange, you wanted to a moment ago.” How could his voice be both soft and deep at the same time?

"I wasn't thinking clearly. You don't love me. Or care. And you're going to hurt me."

“Of course I am.” He said with grim finality. The hand on her wrists squeezed tight as he pulled her arms down, forcing her back to arch against the stretching pain. She yelped as he shifted her onto the cold floor. His other hand tuggeded her braid, snapping her head back while tears of pain pooled in the corners of her eyes. Forced to look at his face she saw cruelty sharpening his features. He snarled silently at her.

_He manipulated me the whole time,_ she thought in panic. _And I knew it, but I let it happen anyway because I'm so naive. Isn't that what Cloud always said, that I'm far too trusting? I trusted Sephiroth, of all people_. Her eyes close, for there is no point in protesting the inevitable. He meant to have her and he would. He wanted it to hurt, to prove he was strong, she was weak. He wanted to scar her soul.

_Be brave. Don't cry, no matter what._ She tried to prepare for the next brutal touch. It didn't come. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes stretched into eternity, and finally she opened her eyes, wondering what he was about now.

His pained expression said more than words ever could. He struggled, either trying to regain control or let it go altogether. She couldn't tell. Finally, his face reverted to his typical emotionless stare. Using her trapped arms as leverage, he pressed her against him. She shivered as her bare chest met his heated skin. He bent his head towards her, lips brushing her hair.

“Fuck,” he muttered, letting go of her braid and then her wrists. “So that's how you think it will be, isn't it?”

She almost says yes, but her mouth won't open as if her very spirit kept it shut. As if her soul is far too attuned to his and knows these words she must hear.

“They made me in their image. I kill. I hurt. I destroy. This is what I do. You know this. And you know-” he leans forward, his voice dropping to a hiss, “that if I meant to do that to you, I would have done it a long time ago.” He reached out, and once again traced his finger under her eye. “I won't hurt you. I promised your father I wouldn't. A long time ago.”

“I-” she didn't know what to say. The intensity behind his eyes enthralls her. If it was passion or madness who was to say. Those two emotions are too tightly bound together to really differentiate one from the other. He buries his face in the crevice between her neck and shoulder.

“You are very beautiful,” he breathed against her skin. His hand stroked the side of her neck before drifting down to brush feather light strokes over her nipple. She felt his lips curled into a smile at her sharp inhale. He tugs on her nipples now, hardening them into tight buds that beckon him. Heeding their call, he dips his head, taking one in his mouth. She feels the flick of his tongue and moans. He rewards her by suckling on the bud until the sweetest desire in the world hums through her body.

“I won't hurt you.” His fingers tease her other nipple now. “Say you want me.” He takes that nipple in his mouth too, tugging it gently between his lips. She shivers.

“Say it,” he groans against her skin.

"I want you." She whispered her own doom. It was too late to stop now. She would not exchange the warmth of his body for the coolness of another night by herself. She could not exchange the multitude of sensations he was making her body, heart and mind feel for the solitude of loneliness. He didn't love her, he didn't care, and this was nothing more than lust for him. But once, long ago, he'd promised her father he would never hurt her. Why did no one ever tell her that?

**_Because you should have remembered,_** Planet whispers.

Everything he does reveals the words he wouldn't say, the pleasure he felt at hearing her answer evident as his hands roamed all her bare skin. All to easy to just close her eyes and slip away underneath him, losing herself to calloused palms, elegant fingers, and teeth-sharpened kisses. He teases her breasts until they are aching sensitive and every touch draws a moan. Only then does she feel his hands spreading her thighs. Fingers stroking the lips of her pussy before his thumb hooks on the pearl he finds.

_Planet,_ she thinks in a daze, moaning again as his thumb flicks the pearl again.

“Gods,” she groans.

His eyes flare briefly with a pure green light of male pride, the exact same hue of the Lifestream. Everything about him screams death, not life, but there is something alive and worth fighting for in him, something- the thought skitters away on the press of his thumb and its entwining strands of desire. Her breathing becomes ragged and desperate. All the while his bright eyes keenly watch her, proud and distant. She finds his composure revolting. She'd been in awe of his body when she touched him and his face softened for her. Now he looks so hard and tense, a man in complete control while she falls apart. _Can he not for just one intimate moment let it go?_

"Why are you making me feel this way?" she breathed. “Can't you just- oh.”

One of his fingers slides inside of her and curls against her very core. She clings to him in shock, waves of pleasure scouring her.

“Because I like watching you,” he rasps. “And now,” his finger slides into her again. “I can feel how much you want me, Cetra.”

_I felt it to. When i touched you,_ she thinks but cannot speak. It is impossible to say anything with his fingers drawing out her desire.

“You want something else? Your face in the dirt, your little ass would be up in the air with my cock inside? You'd scream, Cetra, I know you would.” His voice utterly unashamed when he speaks.

“You-” Is all she can say.Her face flushes bright red, both at the dark promise in his words and at the fact he'd said such things to her.

“This is how people make love, isn't it? Can't you relax like a normal girl? I've never done it like this and I want to see.” He tells her, cat eyes intent on her face.

“Make love?” She chokes out faintly, wishing he would stop touching her like he was so she can form a coherent sentence. That's not right, they shouldn't, they couldn't... what love between them? How could he... could she?

“I'm going to make you come first.” His stare holds her own while his fingers stroke faster, thumb circling her clit again and again. She moans, arching her back and canting her hips against his hand. Seeking a deeper connection. All the little tendrils of feelings connecting together weave their way between womb and heart, turning into pinpricks of light. Her vision blurs, her muscles tighten, her breathing grows ragged. Beyond caring now about anything now. If he wanted to see, let him. If he wanted to torture her, let him. He could do this forever and she would let him-

“Come now.” His voice somewhere between a rough laugh and a deep groan.

_Yes,_ she thinks as her vision shatters with a cry. She imagines her body shatters too, revealing that light she never knew lay inside until his touch drew it out. Ecstasy leaves her breathless.

“Yes,” he mutters raggedly to a question she never asked, pressing his forehead against hers. “We are the last of us. Open your mouth for me.”

This kiss just as rough, but she no longer cares. She wants rough and hard, needing something more than just his touches. _Him, I need all of him._ He lets go of her and she whimpers, even if it is just to discard the rest of his clothes with reckless abandon.

“Here,” he growls, kissing her again as he grabs her hand and thrusts it down between his legs. The moment her fingers brush against his erection she wraps her hand around it like before. He hisses into her mouth. She has to look and see, breaking their kiss.

Planet, all of him was silver and white and green cat eyes. And big, all of him big and powerful, even this part that responds so eagerly to her hand that looks so small against his straining cock. They're supposed to fit together, somehow. She strokes him gingerly, he's iron-hard everywhere, and she doesn't understand how that would ever possibly feel good inside of her.

“Is-” she licks her lips, knowing she's blushing again, but deciding since they're already naked and all, there's no point in being embarrassed. “Is it supposed to be so big? Maybe... a little smaller might be better."

His eyes flick to her face, his features tight and blank. A short laugh escapes his lips. It wasn't a nice laugh, although it could have been if it hadn't been tinged with sarcasm and something sinister that Aerith guessed was the madness of his soul. One of his hands comes up to stroke her hair, idly twirling a lock or two around his fingers.

"I wouldn't know," he almost hissing the words. When her hand reaches the tip of him, curiously rubbing at the wetness she finds there, he growls. He pushes her backwards down onto his midnight black cloak, making her release him as he covers her with every inch of his bare body. They entwine together like strings, his arms curling under her back, her arms wrapping around his neck, his palm slapping against the ground as his arm straightens to hold himself above her.

“Love me, Aerith, yes?” His deep words sear her. She knows she won't forget them or how he looks hovering above her, silver hair outlining his face, delicate features glowing in the firelight. His hips tilt towards hers.

_He wants me to love_ \- he spears her. The slim barrier of her maidenhood vanishes as if it had never been, leaving only a flash of pain behind. She yelps at the intensity of it, both the initial pain and then the fullness of him inside her. He groans and the hand beside her shoulder turns into a skittering fist as he collapses on top of her. Almost completely crushing her. Catching himself at the last moment to hang brokenly a few scant inches above her.

The mask is gone. He looks like a man who meant to jump into shallow water, but finds it's far too deep and he cannot swim.

“Fuck, you're a virgin.” He said the word almost with awe, as if he had never seen, much less touched, a virgin before.

“Was,” she mutters, her voice ragged with pain. Was a virgin, but not now, clearly. She didn't know what he expected, why he thought she wasn't. He closes his eyes, exhaling sharply, and allows his face to harden again into the mask she's coming to know all too well.

"You should have said something..”

_You should have asked,_ she wanted to shoot back. But she's not 12 and able to hurl childish retorts. In fact, with him inside of her, she's never felt less like a girl and more like a woman.

"I wouldn't have done it like that if I had known." His words are whispers.

"I know," she said, and meant it.

He shifts a little and they both gasp at the sensation the movement caused.

“Just stay still,” he bites out, withdrawing ever so slow as he lifts himself up. Slow as a sunrise, he pushes into her again, watching her carefully. She watches him too, feeling his power but sensing his gentleness. His face hides everything else. As he begins a soft, slow rhythm his eyes slide into narrow slits that emit a green light while his face grows taunt, almost as if he is in pain just like her.

“You're too tight,” he finally grits out.

“You're too big,” she hisses.

“Heh.” He closes his eyes, concentrating. Adapting his movements to the sensations of her body and only going so far, but no further. There is a subtle shift towards pleasure. “Better?” Opening his eyes a little. She nods, and then so does he, gripping onto her tighter as he starts moving a little faster. In a moment of eternity they come together in silence, only the sound of their breathing echoing in the cave.

She wonders how the impossible became possible, that what should be wrong now feels utterly right. He was, is, her enemy, but in this he is her closest companion. He is violent and ruthless, but in this he is gentle. He is a stranger, but in this it feels as if he's known her forever.

**_You have. You could know, if you remember._** Planet's voice brushes through her like a summer wind that comes before a heavy storm. The cat eyes staring at her are clouded, holding back that blazing Mako energy inside. His eyes. She knew those eyes. Knew them just as she knew the eyes of her mother.

**_Yes,_** Planet murmurs, and something in her mind twists, not unlike the way her body twists now underneath his own. A part of her mind locked away, enspelled by her mother long ago when those old hopes turned to nightmares. Ifalna had tried to shield her daughter from those halcyon days by hiding those memories of her childhood. Memories of Ifalna, her mother, and Gast, her father, and Sephiroth.

They spill over into her conciousness. Sephiroth as an awkward boy, always apart and alone. He needs friends, her father had said. He needs you, her mother had said. They weren't friends, not at first, until one day it changed. Then they were. Then he would make her smile when she saw him. He'd submit to playing childish games, and even occasionally let her brush his hair. With Sephiroth by her side, none of the other children dared to call her 'wierdo' or any other name. When he was with her, she felt like she could do anything.

When her father died, he came no more. Ifalna ran and hid, taking Aerith with her. They ran until they couldn't run any longer. She'd cried for her father, but Ifalna said he wouldn't come anymore and they were in danger. She'd cried for Sephiroth because he could save them from anything, and Ifalna made a sad face. _He can't come anymore either, sweetheart,_ Ifalna said. There were tears in her mother's eyes as she pressed her fingers against her daughter's forehead. _It's better you forget. It's too dangerous to remember._

But she never forgot, not entirely. Not even Ifalna's magic could completely erase a childhood memory. A part of her always kept looking for him, the silver-haired boy who came no more. He was there as a fantasy in her teenage years, summoned in dreams. He was there in Zack, who wanted to be like him then, and he was there in Cloud, who wanted to be like him too. He was there at the Temple and he was here now.

He'd always been with her, and she with him, just as he said. She'd never really been alone. Looking up into his face lost in concentration, Aerith said in her mind the things she wished she could say to him. How much she wanted this, how she had always wanted him, how beautiful he was, how good this felt, how-

"I could almost love you." Oh gods, had she just said that out loud? His concentration falters as he blinks several times.

"What…did…you…say?" His movements fraught with exquisite care and increasing urgency.

All her emotions were bundling into tight nerves, years of emotions, memories, and separations. The yearning he was building in her body only amplified all of it, old memories and current desire. Always, they asked the impossible of her. Hide and forget who she was, it was not safe. She was the last, she must be strong, for her destiny was apart from the others. She must save the Planet, no matter the cost.

Always asked to do so much, when all she ever wanted were the things normal people had. A family. A husband to stand beside her. Children whose hands she could hold. Things she couldn't ever have. Sephiroth... she couldn't imagine him being those things either, not a husband nor a father. Maybe he could have once, but now... now.

Maybe it didn't matter now. Maybe he was the monster they all said, and that he was incapable of feeling love and that she herself was too scared to give him her love. Still, she knew that, oh, she knew that if he had not been twisted by his birthright and his place in the Shin-Ra lab, that if his eyes had not seen their share of bloodshed and vengeance, that if their fates had just shifted a little to the left or to the right, that he could have loved her.

And that, after all the years of searching and losing, was enough to make her love him. They didn't have forever, they probably didn't even have tomorrow, but they had right now. This moment wouldn't come again, and she was done with regret because they were both falling apart.

Her hands cling to his broad shoulders, fingertips brushing the long silver hair swaying with his movements. Tentatively, she moves her hips a little. He groans, then bites his lip, staring bewildered at her. Compassionately, she touches his cheek, the caress so soft she wondered if he even felt it against his skin.

"I, I love you, Sephiroth, I do," she moans. What is done cannot be undone. "You are beautiful to me. I've always thought you were beautiful since I was a little girl. You're all I've ever wanted and I didn't even realize it. It's stupid, I know.. so stupid. I knew and I didn't know. It was always you and the rest was shadows. And it, ah.” A deep thrust makes her unable to speak.

His rhythm falters then fades as he freezes above her. Finally the mask he wore to face the world crumbles. It's not the man who looks at her, but the teenage boy of her memory so long ago, who stared at the cookie she offered him with no idea what to do or how to respond. It's the same damn look after all this time, except his eyes burn oh so much brighter now with the power he'd grown into, even as he never quite was able to leave the boy behind.  
She moves for the both of them, Planet's hum turning into a triumphant song as his hands come to clutch at her hips. She breaks against him, he looks down at her in astonishment and awe, relinquishing control to her once more as he lets her pull his head down towards her. She kisses him as she climaxes, her body clutching at him.

“Aerith.” He snarls into her mouth, finally regaining enough sense to thrust once more, burying himself as deep as he comes hard and strong, filling her with warmth.

He places his head against her shoulder, covering her as his body falls over her. Trapped between unyielding ground below and unyielding man above, she feels at peace. An occasional tear streams down her face then falls onto his. He stirs, lifting his head from her shoulder with dull Mako eyes and wipes away the tears using this thumb.

"Why do you cry?" He sounds just reluctant to break the silence as she.

"I don't know," she replied, giving a small laugh. "Because I'm silly. Because I had to find you now, when we should have found each other years ago. There is so little time now."

His eyes narrow, the mask back in place as his hand tightens on her upper arm. Then he sighs, nuzzling her neck as he clasps her breast, stroking the nipple with his thumb.

"I think," he growls, "we should make up for lost time."

She agreed completely.

 

* * *

 

 

**She wakes up sprawled across his chest,** their arms entwined around each other. He reclines against the cavern wall, and she wonders how they came to rest here, until – _cave wall cold against her back as she arches into him, legs wrapped around his waist as his lips hover around her ear, whispering for her to cum for him Right Now as his hips slam into her until she screams in bliss._

She blinks. He's not asleep. His eyes reflect the firelight, and the dancing flames play with the shadows on his face. She thinks he looks tired, far more tired than he should, as if he hadn't slept in years.

He knows she awake, but he keeps his eyes focused on the fire even as she feels him shift one hand into her hair, slowly brushing his fingers through her strands.

"Go back to sleep," he commands gently.

“You sleep too,” she whispers. Only then does he meet her stare with a small smile. At some point during the night, he abandoned his mask completely and his face is still bare to her.

"There is no sleep for one such as I. Go to sleep, Aerith. I like watching you dream."

 

* * *

 

 

**When she woke again,** she was snug in her bedroll and wrapped in her parka. He was gone and the fire burned low. She lay perfectly still for a little while. It didn't come as a surprise. She hadn't really expected anything to change between them. One night can't undo the damage of the passing years, and just by telling someone you loved them didn't mean that they would stop wanting to destroy the world and stay with you.

Most of the night was a blur she could only remember in glimpses – _his teeth nipping at her neck as he surged inside of her, her hands splaying on his chest as she rode him, the playful gleam in his eyes as he lowered between her shaking legs and licked her with his tongue until she cried out his name, his hand tangling in her hair as she suckled the length of him while he groans her name._ She felt her face grow warm.

_My dress!_

She sat up in alarm. He'd ripped it and she had nothing else to wear, and there weren't any clothing shops out here. Keeping the parka wrapped around her, she stumbles to her dress, folded into a square beside her boots.

_I didn't do that,_ she thinks, examining the dress. Her mouth falls open as her fingers trace over the tight, uniform stitches running parallel to her buttons. Yes, if Sephiroth could sew, those would be the kinds of stitches he'd make. And just the thought of Sephiroth sitting here by the fire, sewing her dress back together... she smiles and then draws the garment against her chest.

All thoughts of shame and embarrassment over what passed between them last night fled. Her heart soars and she seeks out for him, trying to sense where he was. All she could get was a distant echo, he was far away and moving further. Perhaps he was leaving, deciding he didn't want to go to the City of Ancients after all?

No, that might be too much to hope for. More than likely, he just needed time to figure things out, like she did.

Did she love him, like she'd said last night? She meant it then, but did she still mean it now? Sliding into the dress and nimbly closing the buttons, she knew she did. Love was not something to be cast away like a broken toy if it got discouraging. She put on her boots with a new resolve. He did have feelings, no matter what Cloud and the others said. Though it was speculated that the man he had once been had died years ago when he destroyed the town of Nibelhelm, his words last night proved differently. _There is no sleep for one such as I._ Sephiroth could not sleep, for she guessed that in his sleep the demons of his past came back to haunt him.

She was going to help him, after she saved the Planet. Maybe, eventually, he would love her in return. And with her, he would be able to sleep at night, she would make sure of it. She left the cave and made her way to the City of the Ancients, never to return, at least not in this world.


End file.
